The official "It's OURS!" photos... not necessarily the official "AFTER" photos

We closed on the house Thursday! It's officially ours!!!
Still plenty to do (painting, cleaning, etc!!), but below are the updates to the photos!

All projects can now be done on OUR timeline! Woo Hoo....

 Celebrating the closing!!

My range... can't wait for it to be set in place!

 dining room

 Other end of dining room

 Basement bedroom #1

 basement bedroom #2

 Basement rec room

 basement wet bar

 basement bath

 entrance

 mud room

 stairs to master bedroom

 master bedroom

 view from master bedroom

 master bath

 view into 3 season porch

 mind the construction mess...

 den

(actually there's stone all around the bottom now, but it's raining today, so no updated photo!)

Hope to see you all over here soon!

This is a Marathon, not a Sprint! (I was told that by a wise person this week!)

So, what mile of the marathon do people normally hit the proverbial "wall"?! I think it's when they're told they have to re-paint every room in the house...

The trim in the house was sprayed this week, and what we were blissfully unaware of, was the fact that the painters would not cover the walls that were previously painted, resulting in a bright white "spray" all around the trim on the floor and each and every window.

At least the trim looks great...

The stone on the exterior was installed in about 2 days... things are really shaping up!

We put cedar siding on the master bedroom balcony... I love the way it turned out!

The countertops were installed this week as well...

The wood floors were also installed, but fortunately were covered before the trim was sprayed!

No photos available... it's still under paper.

The master bathroom countertops and tile were finished up this week too.

We have the closing date set for April 17th! Super excited....

Lots to do over the next week... Mark and I are both exhausted!!!

HAPPY EASTER, everyone!!!

Week of vacation

Since we are so close to the end, I took a week off to get some projects done.

Dad and Connie came on Saturday and stayed until Wednesday.
Connie worked her magic in the kitchen and kept us well fed the entire time! She also ran the shop vac for hours and hours... the house needed it so bad!

We also took a trip to Menards. The magnetic escalator was a first for Connie!

Dad and I finished up the basement flooring, painted the fireplace and installed the countertop on the cabinets downstairs.

The cabinets arrived, and our awesome trim guy set them this week...

 The outside is getting the front portico and overhang over the garage built. The stone also arrived and we passed the lathe inspection today! Stone goes on tomorrow..

The electricians were here this week and hung a lot of the lighting... we have a room that looks almost finished!!

Bathroom cabinets and lighting

Let's see... what else....

Trim gets painted tomorrow, tile is going in the showers and master bathroom, hardwood floors start Saturday and countertops are installed Wednesday. We went with soapstone on the perimeter and Super White quartz on the island. 

Next week the electricians return to finish the lighting and turn on the power. Plumbing will be here on Thursday... toilets and running water! Life is good...

Then we're done! Off to the bank to close the loan, at which point we can do projects on OUR timeline... not theirs!! Ahhhhhhh...

So, we're at the final push and things are in full swing! I'll update next week after flooring and countertops are in!

I'm going to hurt the next person who says renovating a house would be fun!

Ok, I'm kidding. Not really...

So... our cabinets were delivered today!!! Actually, they were delivered yesterday, but because of road restrictions, the 4 ton truck had to turn around and bring the cabinets all the way back to the warehouse. But they were safely re-delivered today down our lovely dirt road in a smaller truck. I can't wait to see them!

Tile starts tomorrow for our showers and master bathroom. Cabinets are installed on Monday and get measured Tuesday for countertops. Speaking of which, I started shopping and having my heart originally set on white marble and soapstone... I have come to realize those dreams may quickly be dashed. Not that I needed marble in my kitchen... I'm not known to be the neatest freak (or any sort of neat for that matter).

Below are two options of granite I didn't hate:

After seeing the sad pieces of soapstone they had at the shop, I was pleasantly surprised to find this piece of granite.

As for my "white marble" option... so far, this is all I have come up with:

It's a white granite called "Fantasy White" or something like that. I don't hate it, but it's a little too grey I think. I'll have to think on it...

As for the rest of the house, the painters came in and the siding is going on! Pics below...

Entrance and wall color. Not too bad for picking it out in 20 minutes off the internet!

Kitchen area again, painted now.

Siding... looks amazing in person!

Stone starts soon for the "lower half" of the house. We got a pretty good deal (good job, Mark!)

Well, more updates to come! LOTS to happen over the next couple of weeks...

Walls and All

OK, the HVAC, plumbing and electrical are all installed. Insulation has been placed in the entire home and garage. Oh... and temporary heat! (My new favorite part!)

Once the house was heated through to a balmy 55 degrees, the drywall team came in and started hanging. Taping starts this week and hopefully will be done by Friday!

Updated pics below!

Entry stairs...

View into Rec Room from Entrance

Mater bathroom... shower will be on left hand side, bathtub below the window

Mater bedroom...

Dining room...

Den...

Kitchen...

Great room..

We're due for a BIG snowstorm tomorrow afternoon... not sure how that'll affect the siding going on this week?!?!

BUT, we're ALMOST there.....

Eat My Dust!

Well, these days you can't even walk into the project without becoming a big ole' dust ball! The inside walls are being framed up and I'm actually quite pleasantly surprised at how everything is looking. Mark may actually know what he's doing after all! Not that I ever had a doubt ;-)

The biggest accomplishment over the past few weeks (in my opinion), are the temporary stairs! Oh the luxury of modern day conveniences... I feel so spoiled.

So, not much that shows up well in photos, but a lot of progress has been made. Rooms are coming together, closest spaces being added. Plumbing and HVAC started yesterday and will be working through next week or so.

Not much left now! Only, electrical, insulation, sheetrock, painting, siding, flooring, cabinets, plumbing fixtures, lighting and appliances.

OK, time for a glass of wine. Oh wait... it's not 5:00 yet!

My stairs!!!

Mud Room (or dust room for now)

Front of house, now enclosed

Movin' Right Along!

The Master Suite is now framed in.

Not sure about the master deck angle above the garage?!?! We're thinking of squaring it off at the top now. Stay tuned!!

The roof is on and the shingles were installed this week.
Windows have been delivered...

These two windows will frame our view from the dining room.

Door on left will enter into kitchen

Master Suite from the back...

The inside just looks like a bunch of two by fours right now... 

I guess that's it!

MERRY CHRISTMAS, everyone!

We'll see you in 2012!!!

What once was BLUE is no longer that HUE!!

The permit was approved! The city inspector passed our permit with flying colors...
We hired a crew to do the remaining demo, and Jason came down and started framing.
Wow... what a difference 2 weeks can make! The house is no longer blue!
I'll just cut to the chase and show the pics! They actually say it all...

And we have no roof in the living room any more! It's pretty cold in there right now!

So, now we pray for no snow until the roof is back on (although I hear it's coming next week).

Next on the list... windows, roofing and siding!

Catch you on the next update!

Construction Loan- APPROVED, City Permit- STILL WAITING

Well, it's been awhile since I've posted.  Not too much to report on the construction side of things.
After much anticipation (not to mention hoop jumping) we closed on the short-term loan October 2nd, which will take us through the building process until we close (again) on the FINAL loan!

It's taken some time to get the final drawings from the architect and now we're just waiting for the permit to be approved. The city inspector is on vacation, so hopefully next week we'll have the permit in hand and ready to rock-and-roll!

Dad and Connie came over a couple of weeks ago. Dad and Mark spent about 4 days ripping out drywall. They got a LOT accomplished.

Shortly thereafter, we found a lovely note on our door from the city, letting us know we needed a permit to do any more work on the house. We submitted about 2 1/2 weeks ago and are now in WAIT mode before anything else can proceed.

Mark has  the demo crew and everyone lined up at the starting gate and we're all waiting to be able to pull the trigger on the gun.

Once that happens... everything should be under way with much more exciting things to report!

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

Enjoy your families and friends.  I'm truly thankful for mine!

With Gratitude until the next post...

4th of July weekend

I hope everyone enjoyed the long holiday weekend along with their indepencence!
What a gorgeous one! But I'm EXHAUSTED! We were able to spend the entire weekend working at the house. Dad and Connie came out and we spent all day Sat/Sun/Mon working.
Let's see....
Outside we: cut the lilac bushes back from the deck so they're not a wild mess anymore. Cut back all of the dead branches off the apple trees. Wow, they look so much better! The deck got a power-wash and is ready for a new set of stain. We saved a few pine trees that some nasty vines were choking. The entrance to the drive was cut back so we can now see when exiting (very important!) and the driveway was blown clean. Oh, and of course... the lawn was mowed.

Inside: The last bit of carpeting left in the house came out, trim was taken off all of the doors, paneling taken off walls, tiles came up off of the floor and all of the electrical outlets were taken off (that was my job....BORING!). The oven and refrigerator got a good cleaning and may actually be repurposed now!

Thor came up last night and will work on more demo this week... that'll be GREAT!

All of the quotes from the subcontractors are FINALLY in, so we need to crunch the numbers and see where we're at...

It's coming along!!!